Bradley's 2nd Training Session

Hello,

I am back to tell you about Bradley's 2nd training session.

For Bradley's 2nd training session, we had a trainee trainer, Ashton. Almost immediately, it was obvious that Ashton was inexperienced. Plus, as you will hear on the video, he has a very high-pitched, squeaky voice which is not that commanding.

The main objective of this lesson is "place". Place is used to direct the dog to a particular place, not on the floor, and have him stay until he is told to "break". (Break is used to release the dog from a command.) They use two cots to teach place.

Ashton started with the two cots maybe 5 feet apart and has Bradley go from one to the other when directed. After each successful iteration, Ashton moves the cots further apart.

It didn't take long for Bradley to become bored with this process. I think he was partly bored because of the repetition and partly because Ashton just doesn't make it exciting. Even when he says "break", there is no real excitement.

Eventually, Bradley comes to me for help. He was totally bored and not enamored with Ashton. This is when I said something to Ashton and he moved on to the pedestals. Justin came in to watch right about then also.

The pedestals are used to re-enforce/expand the place command. There are 4 pedestals approximately 1, 2, 3, and 4 feet high with a 2 foot square top. As you would guess, the object is to start with the shortest one and work up to the highest one.

Bradley had no problem with the first 2 because he could step on to them. The third and fourth he couldn't. They were too high to just step onto.

Justin to the rescue. Justin realize Bradley needed a break. He had Ashton get a ball. For 5 minutes or so, Bradley had fun chasing the ball. When he went back to training, Ashton used the ball as incentive (at Justine direction) to jump on to the 3rd and 4th pedestals.

The video shows him jumping on the 3rd one but for some reason, I didn't video the fourth pedestal. That pretty much ended the 2nd sessions. We let Bradley chase the ball around some more before leaving.

Bradley was exhausted after the session. He slept all the way home and for the next couple of hours at home.

Stay tuned for session 3.

See You At The Bank,
Bob Caine

Previous Bradley Posts

Bradley's 1st Training Session

Introducing Bradley